Judgment, Politics, and the Bible
Martin G. Selbrede • ©2009 Chalcedon Foundation • www.chalcedon.edu
September 10, 2009 • Rev. 4 • Compiled from both original and derivative sources (most of which are cited in Chalcedon publications)
The judgment of God
God is the governor among the nations (Ps. 22:27-28);
therefore, He is “a God of judgment” (Isa. 30:18) when man
breaks His Law. When God does act, it is always in terms of
His Law, His eternal standard: “Judgment also will I lay to the
line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail will
sweep away the refuge of lies…” (Isa. 28:17).
God’s judgments – misunderstood: God rules over the earth,
but not according to our expectations. “For as the heavens are
higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways,
and My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:9). Scripturally,
judgment is treated as a “strange work” and “strange act” of
God (Isa. 28:21) – strange because judgment should not
happen since God provides adequate opportunity to repent,
and because God must assemble extraordinary instruments of
judgment (e.g., He is said to “hire a razor” when calling upon
the Assyrians to come in judgment against Israel in Isa. 7:20).
God’s judgments – always certain: God’s forbearance is
intended to provide opportunity to obey His laws. In Rev.
2:21, God says of Jezebel that “I gave her space to repent of
her fornication, but she repented not.” God’s graciousness in
delaying His judgment often gives rise to mocking: “Where is
the God of judgment?” (Mal. 2:17), and too often forbearance
is treated with contempt and misinterpreted as license to
continue in disobedience. “Because sentence against an evil
work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons
of men is fully set in them to do evil” (Eccl. 8:11). God
waited five centuries before dropping the hammer on Israel.
God warned His people (Lev. 26:33-36) that if they violated
the land Sabbath law requiring the fields to go unworked
every seventh year, the nation would be cast out and scattered
and “the land shall enjoy her Sabbaths.” When Israel began to
violate these ordinances, God didn’t appear to follow through.
But a suspended sentence isn’t an acquittal. In 2 Chron. 36:21
the long-promised deportation (to Babylon and beyond)
finally occurred and the emptied land rested for seventy years
– the amount of Sabbaths that Israel had refused to honor over
the course of half a millennium. God is never mocked.
God’s judgments – a burning issue today: Historically, a
profound spiritual decline always precedes a national decline.
In our current era when “the law is slacked” (Hab. 1:4) by
contemporary Christian theology (see Theology paper) and
Christians make the loosening of the jots and tittles of God’s
commandments common practice and teach men to do
likewise (Matt. 5:19), where churches displace His Law with
the “teaching of the precepts of men” (Mark 7:7-9, Matt.
15:9), where the “great things of His Law are regarded as a
strange thing” (Hos. 8:12) by pastors, we realize as King
David declared, “It is time for Thee to work, O Lord: for they
have made void Thy law” (Ps. 119:126).
The “fear of God”
Only the fear of God leads to boldness before men and free-
dom from God’s judgment.
“Fear of God” & society: God has laid out in His Word how
a society must be run. Fear of God that is true and convicting
entails a regard for all of His laws and commandments. It
results in a society of justice, peace, sound money, diligence,
productivity, and blessing (Deut. 28:1-14). Conversely, “the
fear of man bringeth a snare” (Prov. 29:2) and leads to a
society based on statist means of salvation and deliverance.
To exchange the fear of God for the fear of man is to transfer
total power from God (Whose Law maximizes our liberty) to
the state (which must make its own laws, minimizing our
liberty to make good on its promises: to provide total
protection, the state needs total power). The fear of man shifts
the basis of societal order from moral to regulatory, and the
resulting totalitarian socialism is part of the curse of “making
flesh (human means) our arm (strength)” (Jer. 17:5).
“Fear of God” & liberty: Sin enslaves souls; all other alleged
enslavement only perpetuates the myths of environmental and
satanic determinism. God’s Law is liberty. Christ’s death and
resurrection “frees those enslaved by the fear of death” (Heb.
2:15), thereby making His Law a refuge for all who seek it.
“Fear of God” & politics: Many despise their slavery to the
state without considering their slavery to sin. Like those in
Christ’s day obsessed with political freedom, they dispose of
Jesus when He gets in the way of their politics. Issues of
abortion, taxes, sound money, war, immigration, etc., are
important to life, liberty and prosperity. The clamor of politics
obscures the root sin that provokes God’s judgment: abandon-
ment of His Law. The spilling of innocent blood via abortion
is the tip of the iceberg of the many transgressions of God’s
Law for which America is under judgment. It is futile to resist
God’s judgment when His Law is systematically ignored.
“Fear of God” & self-government: America’s founders ruled
themselves according to God’s Law. They did not stand idly
by their neighbor’s blood (Lev. 19:16); they did justice (Deut.
16:20), established righteousness (God’s Law: Rom. 3:31 and
Heb. 8:10), and took dominion in the earth (2 Cor. 10:4-5) to
build God’s kingdom in preparation for Christ’s Second
Coming (2 Cor. 5:19, Isa. 9:7). In return, God delivered them
from their enemies and made their nation safe, free and pros-
perous (Deut. 28). When the fullness of God’s Law ruled the
lives of individual Americans, politics took care of itself. But
modern Americans, unwilling or unable through ignorance to
govern themselves by God’s Law, look to politics for
salvation and liberty rather than to God who provides
abundantly through obedience to His full counsel (Psalm 1).
“Fear of God” & civil government: Officers of state are both
established by and responsible to God (Rom. 13:1; Isa. 52:15;
Dan. 2:21; Ps. 2:10-12; 1 Tim. 6:15) – they either act as
ministers of God for justice (Rom. 13:4), exercising specific
limited powers delegated by God, or they are hired by God for
purposes of His judgment (Isa. 10:5, 37:26; Jer. 27:5-8,
28:14) and subject to His overthrow (Isa. 10:15; Dan. 4:26,30-
32; Acts 12:23, 13:22). 2 Sam. 23:2-3 was routinely preached
upon in colonial America: “The Spirit of the LORD spake by
me, and His word was in my tongue. The God of Israel said,
the Rock of Israel spake to me, He that ruleth over men must
be just, ruling in the fear of God.” This was not David’s
personal opinion, but an imperative laid down by God
Himself for all men and women who govern.
“Fear of God” & voting:
Contrary to popular rhetoric, voting is NEITHER a virtue
NOR a commandment. Obeying God’s commandment that
forbids putting anyone into power who doesn’t rule in the fear
of God IS virtuous. Today’s Christian voters fear man over
God when they worry about “wasting their vote” and voting
“the lesser of two evils.” The “lesser of two evils” is always
evil, and a vote is never “wasted” when it is cast in the fear of
God: “The Lord is on my side; I will not fear. What can man
do to me?” (Ps. 118:6). The modern mainstream media’s left-
right political paradigm feeds the electorate’s fear of man,
creates a false choice for voters, and provokes the electorate
to follow a multitude to do evil (Ex. 23:2) in voting straight
party when neither party nor their candidates represent God’s
laws and principles. As Jesus said, “I will forewarn ye whom
ye shall fear: Fear him, which after He hath killed hath power
to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear Him” (Luke 12:5).
“Fear of God” & justice: Above all else, God requires His
people to do justice (Deut. 16:20, 2 Chron. 19:6-7). God loves
justice (Ps. 11:7, 33:5) and He judges injustice (Isa. 59:15-
18). The officers of state expressly exercise the ministry of
justice (Rom. 13:4). A political ruler will do justice in propor-
tion to his/her fear of God. Conversely, he/she will do
injustice in proportion to his/her fear of man (rejection of
God). Therefore, an electorate’s fear of man is its own punish-
ment: 1) injustice at the hands of elected ungodly rulers (the
“unjust judge” of Luke 18:1-8 “did not fear God” and denied
the widow justice), 2) the people are enslaved to continue
acting upon their fear of man, 3) God’s judgment on both the
people and the man-fearing rulers they elect. If judges and
rulers keep God’s laws, they share in God’s authority over
human life (Ps. 82:6); if they instead pervert justice, they
“shall die like men” (Ps. 82:7).
The Law of God and Liberty
God’s Law abandoned in America: Our founding fathers
would be aghast that modern America, at the individual and
national levels, is in continual violation of most of God’s
laws. For example, they knew that: 1) if God’s people obey
His statutes about citizen-administered relief of poverty
(annualized to 3.4% of one’s income – Deut. 14:28-29, 16:12-
15), “there would be no poor among you” (Deut. 15:4); but
“hardness of heart” (Deut. 15:7) and refusal to obey have led
to transfer of social responsibility and America’s welfare state
has swollen to immense size without ending poverty at all (see
Taxation paper), 2) God mandates parents to raise their
children in the fear of God (Eph. 6:4), not to give them to
humanistic government schools during their critical formative
years; God’s judgment for this is multi-faceted: increasing
property taxes and a shameful perpetual decline in morality
and academics (see Education paper), 3) God declares
unbiblical fiat currency (which is what we currently use
today) an abomination (Prov. 11:1) (see Taxation and
Economic Crises papers); our founders wrote safeguards into
the Constitution against it, and 4) a Biblical foreign policy is
one of non-intervention (Deut. 17:6); God judges nations for
the type of pre-emptive military campaigns (2 Chron. 35:20-
25) we support today that harm noncombatants (see National
Defense paper). Entrusting the state to handle poverty,
education, economics, national defense apart from God’s
Law, or anything not expressly assigned to it by God’s Word,
brings God’s curse. Jer. 17:5 treats the person who trusts in
man, who makes flesh their arm, as one “whose heart
departeth from the Lord.” To entrust the state with
prerogatives that God is holding us individually accountable
for means our hearts have departed from Him.
Free republic to idolatrous, totalitarian state: America’s
foundation for liberty was Biblical Law via English common
law. As increasing reliance on the state displaced personal
responsibility under God’s Law, her foundation eroded and
the character of the people decayed. Any state not based on
Biblical Law is a false god, for it replaces God’s laws with its
own. Jeremiah 2:11-13 compares Israel to her neighbors,
observing that the heathen were more loyal to their false gods
than Israel was to the True One. Israel exchanged the Lord
God “for things that do not profit.” This is a double evil:
“forsaking the fountain of living waters” (God) while “hewing
out for themselves broken cisterns that cannot hold any
water” (v.13). Hewing out for themselves means building a
society according to one’s own wisdom. When God’s laws are
disregarded, the state fills the void and takes over at the high
cost of individual liberty. Totalitarianism is introduced
incrementally as society shifts from a moral to a regulatory
basis. The loss of liberty is not always detectible over the
short run. Citizens come to regard humanistic regulations as
sensible and desirable. This is how “the wicked frame mis-
chief using law” (Ps. 94:20). Ortiz says of the New Covenant
of Hebrews 8:10, “Herein lies the essential structure of
Christianity: God-Law-Individual. It is direct, immediate, and
unencumbered by ecclesiocracy and statism.” Today we are
encumbered by these joint evils – megachurches where people
are kept very busy treading His courts (Isa. 1:12) without ever
being taught God’s Law, and a big brother civil government
compelling obedience to an ever-expanding tablet of
humanistic laws in the name of security – because we have
abandoned God’s laws and thus the liberties they insure.
Theological underpinnings of national decline: “Modern
Christian leaders have the ear of national leaders and preach
in the White House and in Congress without affecting the
national march into degeneracy and apostasy” (Rushdoony).
This dichotomy exists because our forefathers embraced a
faith far removed from that held by most Americans today
(see Theology paper). The huge gap between the convictions
of modern Christendom and those of America’s forefathers
exists primarily in God’s 613 laws, commandments, statutes,
precepts and testimonies (Deut. 28, Lev. 26, Ps. 119:64).
Our foundation is still our hope for the future: God begins
His judgment at “the house of God” (1 Pet. 4:17); therefore,
believers hold the key to America’s future. 47% of American
adults attend church regularly. Christians prevailed culturally
with vastly smaller numbers at our founding. We must
recover the faith of America’s founders who understood the
Scriptures and the unceasing relevance of the entirety of
God’s Law far better than our current paperback-ridden,
sound-bite-happy generation. If we truly fear God, we will
take Christ’s question seriously: “Why callest me Lord, Lord,
and do not the things I say?” We will rightly judge ourselves
today so that God won’t have to place a heavy hand upon our
nation tomorrow. The alternative is to continue living out
sloth toward the only Law that brings life and liberty, blindly
trusting that God is ambivalent to His Law and our covenantal
duty to obey all of it (see Theology paper), ignorantly
invoking His unconditional mercy and provision in exchange
for our unstudied busy-ness in “serving the Lord.” If we
persist in locking Christ up inside the church through
ignorance, escapism and cultural irrelevance, He will shatter
the church just as He shattered the tomb. (Rushdoony)